Defilers of themselves with
beasts, being also leprous, who have infected others [with the leprosy
of this crime], the holy Synod commands to pray among the
hiemantes.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon
XVII.

A leper who goes in to a beast or even to leprous women,
shall pray with the hybernantes.

Λεπρώσαντας
is from λεπρόω not from
λεπράω and therefore
cannot mean “have been lepers,” but “have made others
rough and scabby.” It is only in the passive and in
Alexandrian Greek that it has the meaning to become leprous.
Vide Liddell and Scott.

There seems but little doubt that the word is to be
understood spiritually as suggested above.

The last word of the canon is also a source of
confusion. Both Beveridge and Routh understand by the χειμαζόμενοι
those possessed with devils. Suicer however (Thesaurus)
thinks that the penitents of the lowest degree are intended, who had no
right to enter the church, but were exposed in the open porch to the
inclemencies (χειμών) of the
weather. But, after all it matters little, as the possessed also
were forced to remain in the same place, and shared the same name.

Besides the grammatical reason for the meaning of
λεπρώσαντας
given above there is another argument of Hefele’s, as
follows:

Hefele.

It is clear that λεπρώσαντας
cannot possibly mean “those who have been lepers”; for
there is no reason to be seen why those who were cured of that malady
should have to remain outside the church among the flentes.
Secondly, it is clear that the words λεπροὺς
ὄντας, etc. are added to give force to
the expression ἀλογευσάμενοι.
The preceding canon had decreed different penalties for different kinds
of ἀλογευσάμενοι.
But that pronounced by canon xvii. being much severer than the
71preceding ones, the ἀλογευσάμενοι
of this canon must be greater sinners than those of the former
one. This greater guilt cannot consist in the fact of a literal
leprosy; for this malady was not a consequence of bestiality. But
their sin was evidently greater when they tempted others to commit
it. It is therefore λέπρα in the figurative sense
that we are to understand, and our canon thus means; “Those who
were spiritually leprous through this sin, and tempting others to
commit it made them leprous.”